Sudden Impact
by Beckles1987
Summary: Shaz gets a phone call from Guy's hospital. The victim of a hit-and-run desperately wants to see Alex and when Alex finds out why her world is turned upside-down. Set in an AU series 3.
1. Chapter 1

**Alex wants to see her daughter again. This is her main, if not her only, reason for wanting to leave the 80s, Gene and everything else behind. There is only one way to give Alex what she wants and to get what I want...which is for her to go absolutley bloody nowhere. In short, Molly has to go back to the 80s. Here's what I came up with.**

**Reviews are more than welcome...flames are not.  
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The phone on DI Drake's desk was ringing. Shaz looked at it then around the room, there was no sign of her mentor and she knew without a doubt that nobody else would answer it. With a long suffering sigh, Shaz left her desk and went over to Alex's.

"CID." Shaz reached for the pen and paper she and Alex habitually kept by their phones and started taking down details. "Hit and run, female victim…" The pen fell from Shaz's hand, hit the table and then the floor. Chris looked up from his comic, frowning at the disruption. "And you're absolutely sure? She definitely said DI Alex Drake? Ok…I'll tell her straight away. Bye" Shaz put the phone down and took a breath. "Ma'am!" her voice carried across the department but the DI wasn't there.

"She's still out with the Guv. What d'you want her for anyway?" Shaz had intended to completely ignore Ray until she saw the radio on his desk.

"Gimme that."

"You what?"

"Radio. Now Ray!" It wasn't very often that Shaz shouted, and she gave orders even less frequently so it wasn't really a surprise when all the heads turned her way.

"Jesus. You on the blob or what?"

"Don't be disgustin." She snatched the radio from his extended hand and turned her back on her supposed superior officer. "Guv it's Shaz, what is your location?"

"Either the eighth circle of hell or a confined space with her ladyship. Haven't made my mind up." Gene clearly hadn't heard the urgency in her voice but there was no way Shaz was missing the annoyance in his.

"Are you near the station?"

"Near enough that if you open the window you'll probably hear the lady inspector nagging. Why, what's happened?"

"It's DI Drake-"

"I might have bloody known!" Shaz heard the distinctive roar of the Quattro approaching the station and put the radio down, keeping her eye on the door. The news she had for the woman she still regarded as her guardian angel wasn't something she wanted to deliver over the radio, nor was it something she wanted the whole department to know before DI Drake did.

The sound of raised voiced preceded the double doors slamming open by some time and the argument didn't stop when Gene entered CID, followed swiftly by Alex, who had to put her hands out as the doors rebounded back towards her, but carried on without missing a beat.

"Stop talking out of your arse! It was _your_ fault we lost him." Gene turned around incensed.

"My fault? How in the name of Geoff Hurst's right foot was it-"

"If you'd have listened to me-"

"If I listen to any more of you woolly, liberal lefty, touchy-feely, namby-pamby, Oxbridge psychiatry bollocks than I do now, my ears are gonna bleed."

Gene headed for his office, coat billowing behind him, seeking the comfort provided by good scotch and a fresh packet of cigarettes. He couldn't avoid the ear-bashing he knew he was in for, he knew that from experience, but sitting down with a drink and a fag was still an improvement over being bitched at on the move. Besides, Alex always left his office sooner if it was steadily filling up with smoke, a win-win situation.

Alex marched after him, intent on telling him exactly how he should have acted if he wanted to catch the young man who, in an exhibition of stupidity to a degree that was almost suicidal, had tried to steal the Quattro while they were returning a murder victims personal effects to their next of kin…not that Gene would listen.

"Your ears won't be the only things bleeding if you carry on like this Guv. And it's PSYCHOLOGY!!!"

"Don't threaten me sweetheart. And it was you who started this argument not me."

"I did not start it you sexist, anachronistic, pigheaded shit!"

"Ma'am?"

"Not now Shaz." Gene and Alex spoke in unison, under other circumstances it might have been amusing but Shaz wasn't in the mood to be amused and neither were her senior officers. Alex followed Gene into his office and shut the door.

"Alright then smart-arse. Enlighten me. How did this scintillating discussion start?"

"You said that if I was like this at home there was no wonder than my husband walked out!" Bugger. He hadn't actually meant that to be audible.

"You heard that then."

"Yes. And FYI it wasn't my nagging that made him walk out on me and our six month old daughter. It was the fact that he was, and is, a spineless, two-timing, selfish little twat!"

Shaz stared at the two of them arguing in the office then took a step towards the door.

"Wouldn't do that if I were you Shazza."

"I don't have a choice." She opened the door and heard, with increased clarity, exactly what the Guv could go and do with his head. "'Av' you two finished? Only there's been a hit and run." The arguing stopped abruptly, both more conscious than usual of their lack of professionalism because the most junior member of the team had felt it necessary to say something.

"Why didn't you say something before you dozy plonk?"

"Oh leave her alone Guv. I wouldn't have wanted to interrupt us either. Where's the crime scene?"

"That's not why…Guy's hospital called…"

"Spit it out Shaz!" Shaz's gaze flicked to Gene then back to Alex, she couldn't just blurt it out.

"Ma'am, the victim's…it's your daughter." For the first time since she realised she was in Gene's world, Alex felt her legs go from under her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Alex had another funny turn on tv last night...made my night when Gene almost gave her rescue breaths (kiss of life). unfortunately in this she doesn't need mouth to mouth.**

**The stats on speeding and mortality rates are accurate. something to think about...especially the difference between 30 and 35.  
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**Oh and by the way...the little box that says review...be a dear and click on it.  
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Gene caught her before she hit the floor and helped her back to her feet, leaning her against his desk and keeping a close watch on her in case she fell again. It didn't look likely with the way her hands had a death grip on the table's edge but she wouldn't move her gaze from the floor so he didn't really know what she was feeling, be it dizzy or anything else.

"Did they say…is she…?" Shaz knew what Alex wanted to know, what she couldn't bear to put into words. Was her daughter dead?

"Sorry ma'am, they didn't tell me anything. But if she's asking for you she must be awake. " Alex took that small crumb of comfort and held on tightly. When Molly had arrived at hospital she'd been conscious and aware enough to give her mother's name and rank. The fact that the Molly she left behind knew she was in an induced coma didn't register in Alex's mind.

"Shaz, flask of tea. Plenty of sugar."

"Yes Guv." Shaz knew she was being dismissed but she also knew how horrible hospital tea was, especially when it came out of a vending machine.

Gene's eyes never left Alex.

"You in there Bolly?"

"It can't be happening. It's impossible. She's not here, she can't be. It's not Molly. I'd know…if something happened to her, I'd know." She finally made eye-contact with him. "Wouldn't I?" It was the vault all over again, only worse this time, because it wasn't her own life she was worried about, it was her daughter's. Gene wanted to put his arm around her again but he knew better. It wasn't comfort she needed right now, it was transportation to the hospital. Her eyes went back to the floor.

Alex tried to concentrate on her breathing and not fainting. Her heart raced in her chest, beating so hard it felt like it would break her ribs. Nothing was making sense. She hadn't seen Molly in so long; the girl in her coma hadn't been Molly. It hadn't been real. Now she and her daughter might be in the same world again…only not the world either of them should be in. How hurt was she? A wave of nausea hit her at the thought of how hurt and scared Molly could be and she groped for the car keys on the desk. Gene snatched them out of her reach.

"I don't think so. You can barely stand, let alone drive." Her heart plummeted into her shoes. Gene had his moments but she never thought he was such an unfeeling bastard.

"I need to see her Gene. Please…can't you understand?"

"Sometimes I wonder what you bloody take me for. C'mon." He put an arm around her shoulders and steered her out of his office grabbing a spare radio from a nearby desk. Ray and Chris stood up, ready to make for the Quattro if need be. "Shaz?" At the sound of the Guv calling her name Shaz came out of the kitchen, fixing the cap on to a second thermos flask, the first being under her arm.

"Tea's done Guv." She'd filled all two of the department's flasks. There was a lot of waiting in hospitals and vending machine tea was minging.

"Good. Grab Drake's handbag…an' your own while you're at it. You're comin' with us."

It made sense, Gene thought, to take another bird along. Shaz idolised Alex and would know all the right girly things to say. She could provide the comfort while he took care of all the practical stuff. Like finding out who ran over Molly and giving them the same treatment. Of course there was also the small issue of him having damn near said Alex's daughter was either a figment of her imagination or she didn't give enough of a shit about her only child to see or even try to contact her…that might have had something to do with having Shaz tag along. If Alex threw him out on his arse because of what he'd said, at least she wouldn't be left on her own.

"Ray, hold the fort until I get back. Don't let me down."

"I won't Guv." Gene gave him a nod and steered Alex to the Quattro, ignoring Viv's enquiring look, and waiting until she was situated before getting in himself.

Alex seemed to regain some of her fighting spirit during the drive, to Gene's relief and annoyance.

"Gene for God's sake! If you hit somebody at this speed they are going to die!"

"I won't hit anybody. I am a good bloody driver."

"For a pissed up crackhead, maybe. Please Gene." Something in her voice made him capitulate. They reached a compromise. He stuck the stupid blue light on the Quattro's roof and put on the cassette recording of a police siren. He'd never seen the point of letting police mechanics mess with his baby's inner workings when he had no intention of ever drowning out the roaring engine with that annoying wailing. The tape had been another compromise, one he'd made with Mac.

Unbidden and unwelcome speeding mortality rates floated to the surface of Alex's mind.

"Hit by a car at twenty miles per hour, one out of forty pedestrians will be killed, ninety-seven percent will survive. Hit by a car at thirty miles per hour, one out of five pedestrians will be killed, eighty percent will survive. Hit by a car at thirty-five miles per hour, one out of two pedestrians will be killed, fifty percent will survive. Hit by a car at forty miles per hour, nine out of ten pedestrians will be killed, ten percent will survive."

"You stop that morbid bollocks right now Alex. Do you hear me?"

"It's not bollocks. It's true. Hit by a car at-"

"That's enough. Molly is going to be fine. You need serious bloody help…but your daughter is going to be fine."

"How can you know that? The hospital didn't say anything."

"They don't call me the Gene Genie for nothing."

"You don't grant wishes Gene."

"Depends on who's doing the askin'." In the back seat Shaz did her level best to act invisible.

"I already wished you'd cut down on smoking, drinking and hitting suspects…that's my three gone."

"Yeah well, sometimes I don't count."

"None of them actually came true."

"Sometimes I don't listen either."

More than one person in the car knew he was listening now.


End file.
